The gripping story of a young girl's dreams, aspirations and melodramas told with zest and verve by the sixteen-year-old author at the time.

NOW A CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED FILM WITH BAFTA WINNING ACTRESS, JUDY DAVIS

'A splendidly vivid display . . . its sharply detailed, entirely convincing voice' THE TIMES

'An insightful exploration of class, gender and youthful frustration' ANITA SETHI, GUARDIAN

'It combines linguistic surprise and inertness in a way possible only to genius' NEW YORK TIMES

First published in 1901, this Australian classic recounts the live of sixteen-year-old Sybylla Melvyn. Trapped on her parents' outback farm, she simultaneously loves bush life and hates the physical burdens it imposes. For Sybylla longs for a more refined, aesthetic lifestyle - to read, to think, to sing, but most of all to do great things.

Suddenly her life is transformed. Whisked away to live on her grandmother's gracious property, she falls under the eye of the rich and handsome Harry Beecham. And soon she finds herself choosing between everything a conventional life offers and her own plans for a brilliant career.

A splendidly vivid display ... carrying the reader by force of its narrative and its sharply detailed, entirely convincing voice